A year after New York experimental rap duo
Armand Hammer
first appeared on
Fat Possum Records
with 2023's
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
, member
Elucid
issued his first effort for the label,
Revelator
. His solo work has always been deeply abstract, reaching further into noise, post-punk, and avant-garde influences than his collaborative partner
billy woods
usually does, and with
, he continues in
' direction of incorporating more live instrumentation. The result is a frantic, jarring, and unpredictable effort which darts from breakbeat-fueled mayhem to noisy droning, all framing
's persistent lyrics about caring for his family, struggling for survival and success inside a racist system, and maintaining hope. The album's guest producers and contributors include
DJ Haram
,
Saint Abdullah
Samiyam
, and bassist
Luke Stewart
(
Irreversible Entanglements
). Opener "The World Is Dog" feels like the soundtrack to a breathless chase scene, with a racing bassline and a snatch of Amen breakbeats underpinning the sprinting drums. "CCTV" is erratic and paranoid, and "Slum of a Disregard" (which ends with the cut-up phrase "My landlord's a Zionist") breaks free from rhythm and dissolves into frazzled improvisation, but others like the ghostly "Bad Pollen" and hallucinatory "RFID" are crushed out and doused in buzzing distortion. In the midst of sparser, more confessional tracks like "In the Shadow of If" and "SKP," there's the relatively lighthearted "Hushpuppies" (about frying fish on a Friday) and the mesmerizing "14.4," with a triumphant guest verse by
Skech185
. The tense industrial thudding of the concluding "Zigzagzig" stresses the album's underlying message of optimistic perseverance. ~ Paul Simpson